October 17, 1857 to February 24, 1877

Under the second Reconstruction Act, state governments were required to have a constitutional convention in order to re-draft their documents with laws that would comply with the end of slavery and beginning of the rebuilding process. This would serve as an integral process when petitioning for re-admittance into the United States. While some states sought to comply as quickly and quietly as possible...

When South Carolina's legislature reconvened in December of 1866 the governing body was faced with the task of responding to two recent, significant national events: the radical Republicans domination of that year's Congressional election and the proposal of the Fourteenth Amendment. As South Carolinian leaders gathered in Columbia, they quickly tackled the Fourteenth Amendment decision....

With the publication of ex parte Milligan, the Supreme Court gave leverage to arguments that attacked the legality of Freedman's Bureau courts and military commissions during 1865 and 1866. In the decision, the Court reversed the wartime conviction of Lambdin P. Milligan, an Indiana resident, and declared that no citizen, not in the military service, [could] be tried and sentenced by...

The process of Reconstruction played out differently for each Southern state. In Virginia, the process began smoothly but became more complicated in 1867, after the meeting of the Virginia Constitutional Convention.<br /><br />Representatives from every county wanted to be a part of the re-drafting of the constitution. In Nelson County, W.C. Carrington announced his candidacy in a...

Many Southerners before the Civil War viewed the Northerners as tyrants similar to King George III. In War Poetry of the South, "Poet Laureate of the Confederacy" Henry Timrod wrote "Carolina" and the words on page 113:

The war in the West went on long after Lee surrendered, and not just because it took a little while for news to travel. The Confederates appeared utterly defeated, and yet some still were willing to fight. But the South was not the only problem for the North. Corruption was rampant in Forts Smith and Gibson (Indian Territory, now Oklahoma); safe havens for both southern and northern refugees, from...

Under the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, Alabama was placed in the Third Military District along with Georgia and Florida. General John Pope, a native of Kentucky who nonetheless fought for the Union Army, oversaw the Reconstruction process in these three states. The Third Military District had its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, but General Pope exercised his control over all three states, regardless...

"They were mutilated horribly, stripped naked, their bodies cut open and scalped, even to the beards from their faces," reported a New York Times correspondent from Fort Laramie, in what was then the Dakota Territory. On December 21, 1866, a detachment of 81 soldiers under the command of Captain William Fetterman was lured out of Fort Phil Kearny, ambushed by a coalition of Indians, and...

While angry Georgians voted in favor of secession in 1860, the small, sickly Georgia Congressman Alexander Stephens stood by and watched, helpless to avoid the crisis he had known was coming for years. During Georgia’s secession in November of 1860, Congressman Stephens spoke in firm opposition. Stephens, soon to be elected Vice President of the Confederacy, argued that Southern states should...

While slavery did not exist as early in Texas as in other states such as Virginia and the Carolinas, it still played an important role in the economy and history of Texas. In fact, by the time of the Civil War, slavery was as strongly established in Texas, the newest slave state, as it was in the oldest slave state in the Union. One slave, James Boyd, was 107 years old when he was interviewed in...